South Zone beat West Zone by five wickets in T20 meet

Mumbai, Feb 16 (IANS) The South Zone defeated The West Zone by five wickets in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Inter-Zonal Twenty20 cricket tournament at Wankhede Stadium here on Thursday.

Mayank Agarwal (70) and Vishnu Vinod (36) were the top scorers for the South Zone.

Chasing 141, openers Agarwal and Vinod started the innings on a positive note as they scored 48 runs in five overs before Vinod was adjudged leg before wicket. Leg-spinner Praveen Tambe dismissed Vinod, who slammed four boundaries and two sixes in his 20-ball knock.

Incoming batsman Vijay Shankar (2) could not add much to the score before he retired hurt.

Dinesh Karthik (17), who replaced Shankar, seemed good at the crease but failed to utilise the opportunity as he was sent packing in 13th over by Ishwar Chaudhary with 114 runs on the board.

Middle-order batsmen -- Rickey Bhui (0) and Hanuma Vihari (5) -- were also dismissed in back to back overs.

Unperturbed by the fall of wickets, Agarwal stood firm at the crease and reached the 50-run mark.

In the 17th over, with just five runs needed, Agarwal was also sent back to the pavilion by pacer Shaurya Sanandia. His 46-ball inning was laced with nine boundaries and two sixes.

New batsman Panav Deshpande (9 not out) and Murugan Ashwin (1 not out) then completed the proceedings comfortably to hand a comfortable victory with 14 balls remaining.

Earlier, put in to bat, the West Zone posted 140/9 runs in their allotted 20 overs with Deepak Hooda (32) contributing the most.

For, the South Zone, Chama Milind scalped three wickets while Rahil Shah, Ashwin and Shankar took two wickets each.

Brief scores:
West Zone: 140/9 (Deepak Hooda 32, Irfan Pathan 26; Chama Milind 3-41) against South Zone 141/5 (Mayank Agarwal 70 and Vishnu Vinod 36; Irfan Pathan 1-22)

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